Dragon Ball Super Fan Explains Why Jiren is A Foil To Goku

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When last weekend's episode of Dragon Ball Super revealed Jiren's past and his motivations to seek strength without trusting anyone, fans were quick to criticize how his backstory was unoriginal: the character's family is killed by an evil entity and he pursues strength so he could avenge one day. Batman, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Eren from Attack on Titan, the list goes on. However, a Redditor recently pointed out why Jiren is more compelling than he seems, deeper than what most fans realized, describing his character as a foil to Goku. A foil is a character who contrasts with another character —usually the protagonist— to highlight particular qualities of the other character.

The fan, who goes by the name Shadow-Light Master, explains the interesting contrast between the two characters, pointing out that the main difference between Goku and Jiren is that Jiren doesn't have true friends like Goku does. He did a great job explaining why Jiren became obsessed with strength, describing him as a "victim of circumstances". Here's his explanation of why Jiren is a foil to Goku:

Dragon Ball Super is set to air on Crunchyroll Saturdays at 7:15 p.m. CST. Toonami still airs the English dub of Dragon Ball Super on Adult Swim Saturdays at 9:30 p.m. It's also available to stream on FunimationNOW and Amazon.